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up widely, inches from him.
    “The Cajun?” she asked, suddenly quiet.
    “Yes.”
    “Good Lord. I almost killed you.”
    “Maggie?”
    “Yes?”
    “Behave?”
    ”Yes.”
    He let her up.
     
    7
    SHE SAT against the rear warehouse wall, facing the sea,
watching Durell as he washed off the mud he had plastered on his face and
retrieved his sunglasses from his shirt pocket. He made a point of taking the
rifle with him and keeping it out of her reach. The girl lowered her head
on her forearms and hugged her knees. Everything about he r indicated
exhaustion and defeat.
    He wondered when she had eaten last. Now that he had a good
chance to look at her, he wondered if she had been spending the hours since the
attack on the plantation hiding out in the inland swamps. She wore no shoes;
her feet were caked with dried mud and her legs were scratched and dirty. She
was a mess.
    “I didn’t know Donaldson had a daughter,” Durell said.
    “That’s me. Maggie Donaldson.” Her voice was muffled in the
bend of her forearm. “Listen, it’s not safe here, you know?”
    “He never told me.”
    “Well, he told me enough about you.” She lifted her head.
“Listen, is it true? You worked with Hugh in Malaysia, long ago? And you take
all your orders straight from General Dickinson McFee, getting all the crappy
jobs?”
    “It’s my business,” Durell said.
    “But it’s true?”
    Durell thought about it. “Yes.”
    “Daddy was a little afraid of you.”
    “I expect so. Maggie, what are you doing here in Palingpon?”
    “I came to visit Hugh.”
    “From the States?”
    “I was in school there. Working on my doctorate at Yale. I
gave it all up, It was just a crock of shit.”
    “Why do you talk like that?”
    “Like what?”
    “Obscenity is childish,” Durell said. “Why did you come
here?”
    “I’m hungry,” she said.
    “Yes. Why did you leave school?”
    “I told you, it was a crock—”
    “How long have you been hooked?"
    “What?”
    “Those needle marks on your arm.”
    “Oh, those.”
    “Is that why you left the States?”
    “I kicked it.”
    “Nobody kicks it,” Durell said.
    “Listen, does your grandpa really live on an old Mississippi paddlewheeler , down in the bayous?”
    “Yes. Did you really kick it?”
    “I did. Months ago. Living on an old steamboat would really
be neat.”
    “Are you clean now?”
    She said, “I mean to stay that way. It was just one of those
things. You know. A friend of mine, a boyfriend, I thought he was fantastic, he
taught me. But how he taught me. The son of a bitch. Great lover. Lousy
bastard. He gave me the shi —the stuff.”
    “And you’re sure you’re clean?”
    “Sure.”
    “What made you think I was coming in to kill you?”
    “Well, with that mud on your face, at first I thought
you were one of them. You looked like them.”
    “I gathered that the assassins were Malays. I don’t look
like a Malay,” Durell said.
    “I could eat a horse,” said Maggie Donaldson. “That’s why
I’m getting a bit hippy in the thighs, I mean.
    Nerves. Since I kicked it. Since I asked Daddy for help and
he sent me the plane fare to come here from New Haven. I want to eat all the
time, now.”
    “You look in fine shape to me,” Durell said. “I heard
the killers were Malays.”
    “No, they were not.”
    “They were brown—”
    “They were white men. Painted up. They were Europeans. Or
maybe Americans. I don’t know.”
    Durell was silent.
    “Hopped to the eyes,” she said. “I ought to know.”
    “Maggie, are you sure?”
    “I ought to know.” She nodded emphatically. “They all wore
some locket or medallion or something. I had a good look at them when they came
into the house. I didn’t know they’d already been in Palingpon, already killed
Daddy. They all passed within a foot of me—I was in the downstairs john and
peeked out when I heard them. They came into the house like a bunch of
lunatics. So fast. Maniacal. I was lucky to get out the